Bahai Philosophy and the Question of the Environment

For Levi-Bruhl, totemic logic was opposed to modern, rational, and scientific logic. According to him, the distinctive element of modern and scientific logic is the law of contradiction which affirms that contradictory propositions cannot be simultaneously true, that A is A and cannot be not-A. For Levi-Bruhl, totemic logic was the opposite of modern and rational logic precisely because it was based on contradiction and metamorphosis. As Levi-Bruhl pointed out, in the totemic consciousness humans are simultaneously nonhuman. Humans are both human and totemic, since it is the totem, a natural object, which is the ancestor of the tribe. Religious ceremonies represent other forms of this metamorphosis. Mythic logic reflects the continuous transformation of nature into culture and vice versa. Levi-Bruhl also argued that the logic of premodern societies is based on the fundamental principle of the homogeneity of all beings. The essence of reality was held to be a creative force that took different forms in different things. That is why, Levi-Bruhl argued, premoderns believed in the unity of human beings and other natural species, portrayed in art beings that are simultaneously human and animal, identified humans as group members and not as independent individuals, and identified particular objects with their species. ii Levi-Strauss criticized parts of the theories of Durkheim and Levi-Bruhl. He rejected a qualitative gap between modern logic and totemic consciousness and questions the universality and even the religious character of totemic systems. However, he affirmed in a different form the underlying principle of mutual exchange and the kinship of the cultural and natural worlds in mythological logic. Mythology reflects a concrete representation of the system of classification and the structural relations which constitute the identity of a group and its relation to the other groups and the world. The component parts of these relations vary in different mythologies, but the underlying structure of exchange relations remains intact. The harmony, kinship, and metamorphosis of the culture and nature remain universal while the substantive elements of these relations vary from group to group. It is a structure which affirms both the opposition and unity of cultural and natural realities. In other words, what is crucial in all mythic systems of classification is that the social and cultural system of classification is mirrored in the system of natural classification. It is the principle of homology among different classification patterns that defines the structure of mythology. This leads again to a system of proportion and repetition. For instance, the relation between the sacred and the profane is repeated in relations of purity and impurity, male and female, superior and inferior, fertilizing rain and fertilized land, and bad season and good season. iii

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